So she sent a message to Lin Qiqi, who followed gossip about wealthy families: "Have you heard about what happened between Xiaoyu and me at the Shen family's New Year's Eve banquet?"
Lin Qiqi likes to stay up late watching dramas during her holidays. She's still awake at this hour. Wen Yun sent her message and received a reply shortly after.
Cute and sweet little Qiqi: [Huh??? My mom arranged for me to meet my arranged marriage partner tonight. What happened?!]
The Shen family hosted a New Year's Eve banquet for all the wealthy families in Z City, including the Lin and He families.
Wen Yun originally planned to find Lin Qiqi and He Sheng at the banquet and stay with them until the end, but when she asked beforehand, she learned that they each had something to do, so she had to give up the idea.
[My brother told me there was a rumor going around that my grades had dropped because I'd fallen in love with the rich girl who was taken home.] Wen Yun patiently explained the whole story to her. [Back then, I assured my brother that nothing like that had happened. But tonight, Xiaoyu and I had a little accident and went to dance together. And then… she confessed her feelings to me through her piano playing.]
Within seconds of the message being sent, Lin Qiqi sent a long string of question marks, followed by a voice call.
Wen Yun answered the call, but Lin Qiqi remained silent for a long time before complaining, "It's like a fairy tale... So, did you accept her confession?"
“I think so,” Wen Yun sighed. “But as you know, I have no experience in relationships, so… I don’t know how to deal with this relationship, so I came to ask you.”
"But I have no dating experience either!" Lin Qiqi exclaimed in shock. "The only time I've ever been in a relationship since I can remember was tonight! When I met my arranged marriage partner, I was so nervous I could barely speak! No, I really can't! You should ask someone else!"
"Then, then let me ask you the simplest question!" Wen Yun quickly added, "Just tell me how you hope to be treated by your arranged marriage partner!"
“This isn’t a simple question!” Lin Qiqi said. “Besides, ‘how you want to be treated’ is a very personal matter. Everyone’s situation, experiences, and personality are different, so the way they want to be treated will definitely be different too! You should ask Xiaoyu!”
Wen Yun was speechless after hearing what she said, and the phone was hung up the next second.
Adorable Little Qiqi: [I'm going to sleep, I'm going to sleep [pretending to be asleep]]
It seems Little Vicious has no intention of answering this question.
Wen Yun had no choice but to exit and open He Sheng's chat window: [Classmate! Urgent!!!]
He then copied and pasted the message he wanted to send to Lin Qiqi, sent it, and waited for a reply. Five minutes passed, but he received nothing.
He Sheng has a healthy lifestyle, even during winter break. If he hasn't replied to messages by this late hour, he's probably already asleep.
Wen Yun had no choice but to give up, so she got up, found her headphones, and tried to listen to some white noise to help herself fall asleep.
She finally managed to fall asleep around 3 a.m., but in her dream, she kept replaying the duet and piano music from that night. Ruan Yu's smile and lingering expression were sometimes blurry and sometimes clear, making her feel confused and unable to distinguish between dream and reality.
When Wen Yun woke up the next morning due to her biological clock, she found herself lying under the bed, tightly hugging a tabby cat pillow, with half of the blanket on her body and the other half on the bed.
She struggled back to bed, habitually took out her phone to check the time, and then saw He Sheng's reply:
That's good! As for the so-called "response," there's no right answer. Perhaps for Xiaoyu, continuing to care for her as usual, paying attention to her needs and preferences, is enough of a response.
To summarize, what he said was essentially the same as Lin Qiqi's advice.
After waking up and reading He Sheng's reminder, Wen Yun understood a little better.
The problem she thought she had was probably already solved in their daily interactions. However, she was used to being nice to the protagonist and the feedback she received was almost always positive, so she didn't think specifically about what she did to make the protagonist develop feelings for her.
Perhaps, as the protagonist said, she unknowingly gave her heart, so it was only natural that she received a heart in return.
The floor of the room was a bit cold. Because of her strange sleeping posture, Wen Yun caught a chill. Not long after waking up, she felt a discomfort in her nose. After dinner, she quickly asked the nanny for some cold medicine, intending to drink it in advance as a precaution.
While she was soaking the medicine, Ruan Yu happened to be returning from her morning exercise.
Upon seeing the powder package in her hand, Ruan Yu's expression immediately changed.
"How did you catch a cold?" She walked over to Wen Yun in a few steps. "Have you taken your temperature?"
"I've taken my temperature, I'm fine." Wen Yun didn't intend to hide it from her and explained apologetically, "I just caught a cold from kicking off the blanket."
She never expected that because of her words, Ruan Yu would bring her blankets and pillows to her room that very day.
“When I’m next to you, you’ll hold me while we sleep, so we won’t kick off the covers and we can keep each other warm.” Ruan Yu insisted on this, “I’ll go back when spring comes and the weather warms up, so we won’t get cold no matter how much we kick off the covers.”
"..." Wen Yun really wanted to say that she didn't have this fetish for sleeping with people, but she couldn't resist Ruan Yu's repeated requests, so she had to agree to sleep with her for a few nights.
As a result, on those mornings, she found herself holding Ruan Yu very tightly as soon as she opened her eyes, not even letting go of his legs.
She had suspected that Ruan Yu had done it intentionally, but upon closer observation, she realized that such a posture could not be faked; only she could do it willingly. In the end, she resigned herself to allowing Ruan Yu to sleep in her room until spring.
Teacher Zhang, who provides her with special math training, arrives on time every day, and the training and rest times are still strictly set.
Wen Yun would occasionally get so stressed about a problem that she was going crazy and couldn't calm down. So she would take a break and stop by the music room to listen to the protagonist's hard work and think about the other person's experiences in their previous life. Then she would grit her teeth and go back to her room to bury herself in training.
At first, she was indeed very unaccustomed to it, but fortunately, Teacher Zhang knew how to adjust the teaching pace according to the students' learning situation, with a balance between intensity and relaxation, which allowed her to gradually adapt and even find problems to do on her own after class.
Busy as ever, half of the long winter vacation has quickly passed.
During this time, the Wen family elders did not send any messages, whether it was a reprimand or a show of concern, as if they had never spoken to their two daughters. Only Wen Lu would inquire about their learning and piano practice progress every few days and remind Ruan Yu how many days were left until her grade exam.
The so-called "concern" from the Wen family is nothing more than this.
That day, Grandpa Lin came to Grandpa Wen's house to go fishing, and he specially brought Lin Qiqi along, hoping that the three girls could relax for a couple of days and not be too stressed before school started.
So the three of them went with their grandfathers to a well-known resort.
Lin Qiqi wore a woolen hat, a thick hand-knitted scarf around her neck, and a warm down jacket. Even though she was fully armed, when she arrived at the fishing spot, she still rushed into the air-conditioned guest room, sucking on a sweet and sour candy, and looked out the glass window with a puzzled expression, complaining softly, "I really don't understand Grandpa and the others' hobby of fishing in the dead of winter!"
But when she turned around, she saw Wen Yun take out printed biology review materials, and she immediately became even more frustrated: "Didn't we agree to come here to relax?!"
"Uh, I'm not used to memorizing things and doing exercises as soon as I open my eyes today. I'm really sorry." Wen Yun said apologetically, but her eyes were still fixed on the review materials.
"Don't you dare go crazy from studying!" Lin Qiqi sighed. "Your face looks so thin. It's only been half a month, right? The intensity is already this high. What will you do when school starts?"
“Consider it a way to get used to the intensity of the final sprint,” Ruan Yu chimed in. “I asked around among the senior students, and they said that if you want to get into C-level finance in the last semester but your foundation isn’t solid enough, you can only make up for it with this kind of intense effort.”
"You guys are really planning to go to C University of Finance and Economics?" Lin Qiqi gasped. "I can only offer encouragement and support! I'm not saying this to be rude, but with C University of Finance and Economics' admission scores, in the entire C city, only Q University can probably rival it!"
"Just do your best. At least you can be true to yourself if you've tried your best." Wen Yun is quite open-minded now. More than whether she can go to C Finance, she is worried about whether she can choose to stay after passing the Bad Ending point in the original story.
She no longer intends to return to her original world, whether for Ruan Yu's sake or for her own.
A note from the author:
The second update is here!
Chapter 51
Lin Qiqi eventually managed to drag these two "study fanatics" to relax.
The resort has a VR experience center where players can connect online to simulate the "Fishing Master Battle" game developed by the resort. Players throw fish at each other from their boats, and the one who reduces the opponent's health to zero wins. After throwing all the fish, players can catch them with nets or fishing rods. Special fish can restore health after being eaten.
Although at Lin Qiqi's insistence, the three of them each occupied a boat, Ruan Yu only threw the fish at Lin Qiqi, and Wen Yun didn't intend to throw any at Ruan Yu. So after one round, Lin Qiqi was defeated without any suspense.
"This isn't fair! You're all ganging up on me!" Lin Qiqi shouted. "Solo! I demand a solo match!! You guys need to send someone to be the referee!"
After exchanging a glance with Ruan Yu, Wen Yun volunteered to be the referee.
Perhaps harboring resentment for being bullied by Lin Qiqi in her past life, Ruan Yu showed no mercy, displaying the power of two people at once. The dense barrage of fish pelted Lin Qiqi so badly that she couldn't even lift her net.
Lin Qiqi whimpered as she quit the game, took off her VR glasses, pulled out her phone, and said indignantly, "I'm going to call in some people to beat you up!!"
These words left Wen Yun and Ruan Yu completely confused until they saw He Sheng appear at the entrance of the VR venue and take the VR glasses handed to them by Lin Qiqi. Only then did they realize that Lin Qiqi had called a teammate to help her.
He Sheng can be considered one of the top gaming tycoons in the elite circle. While others spend money on designer brands, she spends money on life-size figurines and gaming equipment. The moment she enters the game and picks up the fish, the oppressive feeling makes Wen Yun and Ruan Yu instantly tense up.
With He Sheng joining the fray, the one-sided, overwhelming battle finally began to turn around. By the time the waiter hired by Old Master Wen called them to dinner, the score had been tied by He Sheng.
"Let's do something else this afternoon," He Sheng said, taking off his glasses. "This is too boring."
However, there were very few activities to do at the resort in winter, and Lin Qiqi was afraid of the cold and refused to go out. After discussing it, the four of them finally got a small private room and chose the casual building board game "Dice Street" to chat while building various buildings.
Lin Qiqi started talking about the various gossips she had heard recently, and the topic unknowingly drifted to the New Year's Eve banquet: "I really don't think you two came out in public that day! There were more than just you two dancing with your same-sex partners at the ballroom, so what's wrong with playing a few love-themed piano pieces?"
“I think so too,” He Sheng said. “A normal person would think, ‘The real and fake heiresses of the Wen family have a really good relationship,’ rather than ‘The real and fake heiresses of the Wen family are in love,’ unless they already knew that you two were interested in each other.”
“My brother investigated this matter,” Wen Yun explained. “The initial suspicion is that the Luo family spread the news, but the mastermind behind it is very likely the Shen family.”
"So you're retaliating because you refused your invitation to dance?" Lin Qiqi clicked her tongue repeatedly. "Luckily, my marriage partner isn't from the Shen family!"
"This is just a guess, and we haven't reached a conclusion yet," Wen Yun said helplessly. "But it's better to make this public sooner rather than later, since we do intend to establish this kind of relationship in the future anyway."
"What are you planning to do about your uncle and aunt?" Lin Qiqi asked. "We can't just keep hiding at Grandpa's house, can we?"
Wen Yun was silent for a few seconds, "I haven't thought about it yet. My current plan is to get through the college entrance exam first and then come clean."
"showdown?"
“To be honest, Xiaoyu and I both want to leave that home.” Wen Yun sighed and threw the dice. “It’s too suffocating. There are rules and prohibitions in every aspect. If your grades drop, you will be warned and threatened. If the food, things, and things you eat or use don’t match the style of a wealthy family, you will be looked down upon and ridiculed.”
Looking at the six on the dice, Wen Yun picked up a card and continued, "By the way, when Xiaoyu adopted Niu Niu, she was indirectly criticized. We were also compared to purebred cats and domestic cats. As for what they meant, I don't need to say more, right?"
“There are so many similar things. When they pile up, even normal people can be assimilated by their thinking, becoming extreme and harsh, and viewing the world through tinted glasses.” Ruan Yu continued softly, “We are still inexperienced and haven’t formed firm values yet. We can’t avoid being influenced by our environment for the time being, so we can only choose to escape.”
Their biological parents not only made strict demands on them in small matters, but also did not allow them to have their own ideas when it came to important matters concerning the Wen family's interests or their future.
They had already given them chances, but all they got in return was disappointment after disappointment.
The private room fell silent. After a few seconds, He Sheng spoke up, "Alright, let's not talk about such unpleasant things. Let's all have a good time!"
Happy times are always short-lived. After two days of relaxation, Wen Yun plunged back into the hellish study mode.
It has to be said that the old teacher Wen Lu hired really knows how to provide targeted review. After a winter break, Wen Yun found that her math score had improved from a stable 100 to a stable 120. Although she was still far from getting into the popular majors at C University of Finance and Economics, if she performed steadily in other subjects, getting into a less popular liberal arts major would be no problem.
As the winter vacation was drawing to a close, Ruan Yu also faced her Grade 6 piano exam.
The day before was Wen Yun's last day of class. On the day of the exam, she accompanied Ruan Yu to the exam center in Z City with a relaxed attitude.
Wen Lu was already waiting at the entrance of the examination center. To their surprise, Wen's mother also came. Compared to more than half a month ago, she looked much more haggard, with dark circles and wrinkles under her eyes.
Ruan Yu did not avoid the other person's scrutinizing gaze, and even calmly asked, "Why have you come?"
“When Yunyun took her exams before, Mom would always accompany her.” Wen’s mother looked away, her smile as gentle as ever. “Now that it’s your turn to take your exams, of course Mom will accompany you too.”
Ruan Yu blinked and deliberately lowered her voice: "Mom, is it really meaningful for you to insist on maintaining this facade?"
Seeing her mother's expression change drastically, she continued, "If I couldn't play the piano at all, didn't understand etiquette and rules, and had mediocre grades, would you still do this?"
Before her mother could speak, she replied leisurely, "You certainly wouldn't."
"How could you think of your mother like that?!" Wen's mother glared at her, both shocked and angry, as if she had been stepped on by a cat.
Ruan Yu simply smiled and shook her head, then took Wen Yun's hand and walked towards the hall without offering any further explanation.
When it was Ruan Yu's turn to go into the classroom for the exam, Wen Yun sat on a bench in the corridor, her palms sweating with worry, fearing that her mother's appearance would affect Ruan Yu's performance.
Fortunately, the exam went exceptionally smoothly. According to Ruan Yu, the examiners never stopped the exam and seemed to be in a very good mood, so she should have a high chance of passing.
"What do you mean 'high probability'? Be confident, you're guaranteed to pass!" After hearing the description, Wen Lu immediately corrected him, "Alright, go back and focus on preparing for the college entrance exam. If you want to take the exam again next time, remember to contact me in advance."
"Thank you, brother." Ruan Yu thanked him sincerely, then looked around and, not seeing her mother, asked instinctively, "Where's Mom?"